


A Song of Solitude

by arbitraryink



Category: Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Community: 31_days, Mentions of Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-01
Updated: 2010-04-02
Packaged: 2017-11-21 00:55:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/591609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arbitraryink/pseuds/arbitraryink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Raoul!centric. A collection of responses to the April 2010 prompts at <a href="http://31-days.livejournal.com/">31_days</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Song of Solitude

**Author's Note:**

> I started this challenge but only completed two prompts. I may one day return to it! Raoul!centric. 
> 
> Prompt 1: Pink ribbon scars that never forget.

In late September the land is beautiful, autumn turning the trees to shades of gold, and the rippling lake that is the namesake of the fief reflects the colour back to the shore in perfect accordance. There is a path around the banks of the lake that dips into the trees on the furthest edge, a path that your mother used to walk late every afternoon. Now you stand on the edge of the lake, staring out into the trees and walking your mother’s same route with your imagination.  
  
There are guests in the great stone castle, Nonds who have come to say their last farewell to the daughter – the sister – of their hearts. For as long as you could, you had kept a quiet, polite expression on your face, enduring pitying looks and empty words of sympathy. You’d been quiet on the outside but on the inside you’d been raging, hating the world for taking away your mother and hating these people for pretending to understand.  
  
In your hand you hold her handkerchief – the embroidered E for her first name, the N for her father’s fief, the G for her home – and wrap it around the largest stone you can find on the lake shore and tie it with the string you have in your pocket. For a moment you stare at it, tracing the embroidery with your eyes until you can hardly see it through the tears. It smells like her, the tangy scent of trees, the delicate aroma of woodflowers, but it hurts too much for you keep so close. With a shout that carries all of the passion in your body, you throw the rock with the silk tied around it as hard as you can into the woods, feeling the hurt and anger leave you with her handkerchief, emptying your spirit of all but a deep loneliness.  
  
You don’t know how long you sit on the shore and cry, but when you raise your head, tears having at last run dry, the sun has slipped low over the horizon and you know that your father will have words for you in his study. There is a tug at your heart and you stare longingly at the forest, wishing you had not been so hasty in your rage, wishing you had kept her kerchief in your pocket and not lost it like you’d lost her. After splashing icy water from the lake onto your face, you head back to the castle and to your room, knowing you missed supper and hardly bringing yourself to care. You pass a small, blonde boy as you slip into the fief through the servant’s entrance, and ignore his wide-eyed stare. He doesn’t know – he  _has_  a mother – and so there is nothing for you to say.  
  
Early in the morning when you come down for breakfast, the small boy is waiting for you outside the formal parlor, knees of his breeches torn and muddy. He ducks his head and pulls a hand from behind his back, and you stare at the proffered object. He is holding your mother’s handkerchief, slightly worse for the wear after its stint in the forest, but still carrying the faint smell of woodflowers and pine. Slowly, you reach out to take it. It costs every ounce of willpower you have in your body to keep your strong mask on, and if your father could see you now, you know he’d be proud.


	2. A Year for Yearning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gary wonders if this is how Raoul felt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I started this challenge but only completed two prompts. I may one day return to it! Raoul!centric.
> 
> Prompt 2: Walking on higher ground.

From where he sits in the mess, Gary can see Raoul and Francis, the bigger boy waving his arms dramatically as he tells some story or another, and the smaller one grinning so wide Gary expects to see his face split open. When the story is over, Raoul’s contagious, boisterous guffaws attracting the attention of other pages and causing some of them to join in, Gary turns back to his plate, pushing what’s left of his meal to the side with his fork. On his other side is Jonathan, who is surveying the hall with the arrogance of a king overlooking his conquered lands.   
  
“Tonight,” Jon says in his most commanding voice, causing Gary to glance up at him with his brows raised. “Tonight, we’ll practise fencing for the first bell after supper. You could really use practice with the sword.”  
  
Diplomatically, Gary refrains from pointing out that Jon is just as bad, if not worse than he is – but he’s known the Crown Prince a long time and knows that, when concerning this kind of competition, the truth is rarely the best thing to feed him.  
  
Movement attracts his attention again, and Gary frowns as Raoul and Francis clear their dinner trays with several of the other pages and leave the mess hall. They won’t be working on their assignments together this night. He doesn’t know why Raoul and Jon don’t get along, and he is too polite to ask, but as he watches the two walk away, he wonders where they’re going and can’t help but feel a pang of envy. They are second-year pages; Francis is some kinsman of Raoul’s on his mother’s side, not to mention he is shyer than a deer, so it makes sense that Raoul had volunteered for the sponsor position. But Raoul had been  _Gary’s_  friend first.   
  
Gary has Jon – they are kinsmen too, after all – but watching his best friend joke around with another boy and leave without even an acknowledgment has the ugly beast of jealousy rearing its head in his chest. Not for the first time, Gary wonders if this is how Raoul had felt all the last year, whenever his loyalties took him to study with his cousin instead of with his friend. Not for the last time, he thinks of that and lets it go. Though one half his spirit is warring with the other, he will choose to walk the higher ground, just as he has done these many times before. It is hurt one or hurt the other, and choosing sides is the hardest thing he’s had to do yet.  
  
It’s easier to pick Jon, now that Raoul has someone of his own, but it doesn’t make Gary miss him any less.

 


End file.
